BRUNO
L6
BRUNO
the hermitage of St. Mary, there was erected adjoin-
ing it a little country house at which he loved to pass
the time left free from governing liis State.
Meanwhile the friends of St. Bruno died one after the other: Urban II in 1099; Landuin, the prior of the Grande Chartreuse, his first companion, in 1100; Count Roger in 1101. His own time was near at hand. Before his death he gathered for the last time his brethren round him and made in their presence a profession of the Catholic Faith, the words of which have been preserved. He affirms with special em- phasis his faith in the mystery of the Holy Trinity, and in the real presence of Our Saviour in the Holy Eucharist — a protestation against the two heresies which had troubled that century, the tri-thcism of Roscelin, and the impanation of Berengarius. After his death, the Carthusians of Calabria, following a frequent custom of the Middle Ages by which the Christian world was associated with the death of its saints, dispatched a rolliger, a servant of the convent laden with a long roll of parchment, hung round his neck, who passed through Italy, France, Germany, and England. He stopped at the principal churches and communities to announce the death, and in return, the churches, communities, or chap- ters inscribed upon his roll, in prose or verse, the expression of their regrets, with promises of prayers. Many of these rolls have been preserved, but few are so extensive or so full of praise as that about St. Bruno. A hundred and seventy-eight witnesses, of whom many had known the deceased, celebrated the extent of "his knowledge and the fruitfulness of his instruction. Strangers to him were above all struck by his great knowledge and talents. But his disciples praised his three chief virtues — his great spirit of prayer, an extreme mortification, and a filial devotion to the Blessed Virgin. Both the churches built by him in the desert were dedicated to the Blessed Virgin: Our Lady of Casalibus in Dauphine, Our Lady Delia Torre in Calabria; and, faithful to his inspirations, the Carthusian Statutes proclaim the Mother of God the first and chief patron of all the houses of the order, whoever may be their particular patron.
St. Bruno was buried in the little cemetery of the hermitage of St. Mary, and many miracles were worked at his tomb. He has never been formally canonized. His cult, authorized for the Carthusian Order by Leo X in 1514, was extended to the whole Church by Gregory XV, 17 February, 1623, as a semi-double feast, and elevated to the class of doubles by Clement X, 14 March, 1674. St. Bruno is the popular saint of Calabria; every year a great multi- tude resort to the Charterhouse of St. Stephen, on the Monday and Tuesday of Pentecost, when his relics are borne in procession to the hermitage of St. Mary, where he lived, and the people visit the spots sanctified by his presence. An immense num- ber of medals are struck in his honour and distributed to the crowd, and the little Carthusian habits, which so many children of the neighbourhood wear, are blessed. He is especially invoked, and successfully, for the deliverance of those possessed.
As a writer and founder of an order, St. Bruno occupies an important place in the history of the eleventh century. He composed commentaries on the Psalms and on the Epistles of St. Paul, the former written probably during his professorship a1 Reims, the latter during his stay at the Grande Chartreuse if we may believe an old manuscript Been byMabiUon "Explicit glosarius Brunonia beremitse
super Epistolas B. l'auii . " Two letters of his still remain, also his profession of faith, and a short elegy on contempt for the world which shows that he cultivated poetry. The " Commentaries " disclose to us a man of learning; he knows a little Hebrew and Greek and uses it to explain, or if need be, to
rectify the Vulgate; he is familiar with the Fathers,
especially St. Augustine and St. Ambrose, his fa-
vourites. "His style", says Dom Rivet, "is concise,
clear, nervous and simple, and his Latin as good as
could be expected of that century: it would be
difficult to find a composition of this kind at once
more solid and more luminous, more concise and
more clear". His writings have been published
several times: at Paris, 1509-24; Cologne, 1611-40;
Migne, Latin Patrology, CLII, CLIII, Montreuil-sur-
Mer, 1891. The Paris edition of 1524 and those of
Cologne include also some sermons and homilies
which may be more justly attributed to St. Bruno,
Bishop of Segni. The Preface of the Blessed Virgin
has also been wrongly ascribed to him; it is long
anterior, though he may have contributed to intro-
duce it into the liturgy.
St. Bruno's distinction as the founder of an order was that he introduced into the religious life the mixed form, or union of the eremitical and cenobite modes of monasticism, a medium between the Camaldolese Rule and that of St. Benedict. He wrote no rule, but he left behind him two institutions which had little connexion with each other — that of Dauphine and that of Calabria. The foundation of Calabria, somewhat like the Camaldolese, comprised two classes of religious: hermits, who had the direction of the order, and cenobites who did not feel called to the solitary life; it only lasted a century, did not rise to more than five houses, and finally, in 1191, united with the Cistercian Order. The foundation of Grenoble, more like the rule of St. Benedict, com- prised only one kind of religious, subject to a uniform discipline, and the greater part of whose life was spent in solitude, without, however, the complete exclusion of the conventual life. This life spread throughout Europe, numbered 250 monasteries, and in spite of many trials continues to this day.
The great figure of St. Bruno has been often sketched by artists and has inspired more than one masterpiece: in sculpture, for example, the famous statue by Houdon, at St. Mary of the Angels in Rome, " which would speak if his rule did not compel him to silence"; in painting, the fine picture by Zurbaran. in the Seville Museum, representing Urban II and St. Bruno in conference; the Apparition of the Blessed Virgin to St. Bruno, by Guercino at Bo- logna; and above all the twenty-two pictures forming the gallery of St. Bruno in the museum of the Louvre, "a masterpiece of Le Sueur and of the French school ' '.
Le Couteulx, Annates Clrd. Cart., I; Tromby, Storia del Slo Patriarca S. Brunnnc, I, II; Acta SS.. Ij October; Zanotti. Mom tli S. Brunone i Bologna, 1741 1; I.> pebvre, Saint Bruno et L'Ordrr del i hartn , c Paris, 1883 I '■ * - s rini Kruno. ]tar un religicuj- ,1. ■<, ■ ■■ i ' . -ru* Montreuil-eup-Mer, 1898 . Tappert, Dcr heSigt Bruno Luxemburg, 1872); Lobbel,
Drr Stifter det i artl m Ordent Munster, 1899 ; l.a Grande
Chartreuse par un Chartrcux (1896 .
Ambrose Moigel.
Bruno, Giordano, Italian philosopher, b. at Nola in Campania, in the Kingdom of Naples, in 1548; d. at Rome, 1600. At the age of eleven he went to Naples, to study "humanity, logic, and dialectic", and, four years later, he entered the Order of St. Dominic, giving up his worldly name of Filippo and taking that of Giordano. He made his novitiate at Naples and continued to study there. In 1572 he was ordained priest. It seems, however, that, even as a novice, lie attracted attention by the originality of his views and by 1 1 is outspoken criticism of accepted
theological doctrines. Alter his ordination things
reached such a pass that, in 1576, formal accusation i.i heresy was brought against him. Thereupon he went to Rome, but, apparently, did not mend his manner of speaking of the mysteries of faith; for the accusations were renewed against him at the convent of the Minerva. Within a few months of
